


he, (not) a hero

by crystallizedcherry



Series: Spabel Week 2016 [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 2P Hetalia, Day 5: Incognito, F/M, future canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystallizedcherry/pseuds/crystallizedcherry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antonio would gladly be a hero, but his <i>other side</i> said otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he, (not) a hero

hetalia – axis powers © hidekazu himaruya  
_the author hereby claims that there was no profit gained in the making, written on entertaining purpose_.

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#

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“Hey, Antonio.”

He lowered and tilted the umbrella for her, but she remained still, hands still reaching for the drops she gathered some on her palm, she closed it after, only to lost them afterwards. Antonio previously felt the need to reciprocate her, but he held it for too long to the extent that he only could express everything that was going messy in his head with grabbing the stick too hard it whitened his knuckles.

“Look at the sky.”

He was too silent for a man who had been too much spending his twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week working on things he was not the cause.

“Look at the clouds.” She pointed to the grey lumps, glowing dully, not even acted as hope. But somehow, he managed to get better hearing of her surprising words; he initially thought that she would repeat another hopeless question(s) regarding her concern and fear and anxiety.

“And you are asking me what I am feeling about them?”

“I am not.” She shook her head, languidly. “Have you ever seen the same cloud twice?”

He didn’t have to aske whether she needed an answer.

“Then why we always have the same rain?”

Isabeau slowly extended her left arm, collecting another rain. Hopelessly.

Antonio gazed at the pitter-patter of the rain on the hard road, that once again rang the bell in his head; about how long they would fall into despair like this.

.

“So you think you can give me any idea of which part of the world the scientists we haven’t invited from?” Isabeau put her cup on the table rather abruptly, the scene that would be easily predicted by anyone witnessing how she had been coping with the world’s situation lately. “Oh God, _Dear Antonio_ , I think there’s one. Should we call a hermit from Mauna Kea?”

“I know, I know!” he raised his voice, stopping his aimless walk back and forth in the corner. “We will find a way. Soon!”

“As long as you are stubborn not to listen to my last option,” she sighed, fingers still holding the curving handle of her antique cup, now firmly, for it’s the only one to keep her less angered than she could be. “You will keep talking about that imaginary ‘way’ until our Earth is drowning.”

His eyes, already on fire, darkened. There was an old saying that the hottest fire a human could imagine was all black, overshadowed red that would be much pale in comparison, and Antonio proved it true.

“You dare to recruit _him_ , I wouldn’t stay then.”

“Sometimes heroes are born villain!”

“I am the _hero_. I will be your hero, everyone’s hero.” He took strides closer to her, but she challenged him with the stare the world only had ever seen once. Antonio stopped there, shoved his hands into his pocket only to hide his balled fist he would be ready to throw a big punch at anything anytime soon.

“This disaster wouldn’t stop if your mindset still evolves around yourself.”

“It will.”

And Isabeau left her coffee untouched, and _her_ Antonio unrebuked.

.

It was just easy to find a path lead one to that _place_. Just look for the most gloomy building in titanium, with dim lamps that would be lit only in third quarter of night. Despite located in the center of the town, no one came near often. A myth spread, said that a lot of people turned to be psychopath after wandering around. But in reality, it was only an ordinary headquarter that had been long abandoned by nations, and currently occupied by the other _part_  of their lives.

Isabeau walked on 9 pm., not intentionally hiding her identity and approached the building as if everything was a common routine. She dressed casually, in black jeans and grey shirt with long sleeves and a black vest. She left her hair undone, without the usual green or red ribbon on the top of her crown. A black umbrella was her only company, boots clanking on the slippery  road.

No door was locked in the building, started from its main entrance. Glassed one, but lost its clarity and turned grey and dull. She chose one randomly inside, betting on her luck.

She found nothing on the first five doors she cracked open but an empty room and stacks of boxes and archives and files, meanwhile furnitures were unarranged—yet those which were on its proper place but covered in thick dust and things probably from fragile ceiling.

Isabeau gave up in the ground floor, and realized that the lift was not working anymore, she took a way around to the basement.

She couldn’t hear the pitter-patter of that abundant rain anymore, the sloping ground thrilled her. She left her umbrella somewhere she instantly forgot, and she lost something she could grip to minimalize the constant fear attacking her from the start, from the small door connecting the main building with that part.

“Oh, so it’s you.”

Isabeau turned in shock abruptly.

“You must be so desperate to the extent that you, _you all_ , finally looking for someone here.”

“James, find Santiago for me.”

“Huh?” the man in reddish hair tilted his head, popular smirk resembling his other _part_ made her almost took steps back. “Taking him for you? Dear lady, let me correct you. Taking you to him, you mean, perhaps?”

She gritted her teeth. “Is he around or—”

“Isabeau, right?”

She gulped. She didn’t have to turn back as that person slowly approaching her from the opposite direction, but if she were to, she herself doubted that she would have that gut to look that person in the eyes.

“Even from afar, I can recognize your voice. I would never mistake you for someone else.” In a blink, his voice sounded like whispered directly to her earlobe. “What brings you here, _Pretty_? That Antonio boy betrayed you?” he lifted her chin, though her eyes refused to look, he kept forcing her slowly but sure.

Isabeau slapped his arm, dared only to look at his lips curving a suspicious smile. “We need to have a talk.”

“Private or—”

“Whatever it is, your friends listen to it or not, the most important is the solution,” she raised her gaze to meet his, eventually, but she had to hold something unfathomable in her fists. “Santiago, you **_must_** help us.”

“Not ‘me’?” he cackled.

“There’s ‘me’ in ‘us’. So you have to decide.”

Santiago turned to James and nudged his chin towards a certain room behind two old malfunctioned cars on right side of them. “Tell everyone to give her a space.”

“Better drag your ass soon, sinner.”

“You fucking bastard,” Santiago muttered with a sliver of smile.

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“You guys are focusing on the wrong spot.”

“We have summoned every capable person from across the globe!”

“Then they are not capable.” Santiago walked past her, facing the window serving only dark scenery. He squinted, patting her shoulder. “If we can’t stop the disaster, then we shall make use of it.”

“But how—”

“I’ll be the hero.” Santiago faced her, Isabeau accidentally made an eye contact but she froze. “Your hero, everyone’s hero. Just give me a piece of paper and a pen.”

Isabeau closed her eyes.

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“So in this huge environment system,” Isabeau pointed with her device at the screen on the wall, “we can shield our lives from this neverending rain. The one who provides this concept predicted that this rain won’t stop unless after a long period. This is a new age. If we were to put it on a synonymous era, this is another ‘ice age’ in different form. Something we can’t escape, but we should make use of it. It needed a huge cost to build Dome, Triangle, or Cube as new settlements around the world—but it is better to have new shelterz fast than we are soaking wet too long, doing nothing watching some lands drowning one by one in this abnormality of weather.” She cleared her throat, stepped forward to the audience, “And I’ll bring you the one _hero_ who has pioneered this idea. Santiago, you may come in.”

She didn’t hear powerful ovation as a welcome, but at least some delegations put their attention much on the guest star.

Isabeau tried to ignore the hatred look from the exit on the corner, but she was failed, and she couldn’t hold her guilt also fear and her breath hitched sometimes when Santiago explained the upcoming big project he agreed to dedicate himself wholefully.

Her knuckles whitened.

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“So he is now your hero?”

Isabeau had taken another way out, but Antonio was that _smart_ for her to deceive.

“Every hero has his or her own turn.” She smoothed both sides of her skirt, only to hinder herself from balled her fists again and again—some fingers had wounded her cold palm already and she would hate another scars. 

“You acknowledge him as the hero.”

“Why can’t I?” she turned to him, raising her voice and people on the hall started to notice but she had no time to think. “He has the mindset we need and he needs the skill. They are the _other side_ of us—their way of thinking is opposite to us and it benefits us, not to mention that mortals also will get the better way of living. They see things differently from us, Antonio, you should give them—especially _him_ —a chance!”

“It’s anything but hurt,” he whispered—and he knew she understood and he just stared at her blankly.

“I know.” She caressed his jaw, and he put his hand on hers, halting the motion she finally take a breath after. “Is it an obligation to be a hero to make yourself— _ourselves_ —special?”

“I just ... can’t help it, _Isabella_.” His fingers embraced hers. “The hardest part is the thought that I’m useless.”

“I will allow you to say that only in one case: if our time is over. It’s not now, not tomorrow, not the day after, not next year. _Antoine_.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Every hero will have his or her own chance. Yours is on progress.”

“Will you be fine with someone who has failed to be a hero in one chance? Or you will choose a hero instead?”

She let out a desperate laugh. “Stop it, Antonio, you know the answer.” She brought down their interlaced hands, not intended to let them loose anytime soon. “Hero or not, what make you special is that you are you.”

Isabeau dragged him along, and she took her umbrella. He didn’t bother to take his, then he opened it for her.

The rain was fine. She was fine.

He was going to be— _soon_.

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: i often portray future!earth would have its civilization grouped into a certain living places shaped like a dome, or a cubical sphere ... i often wrote this thing in my indonesian fics so


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